Category Archives: SPRING GARDENING

Windy ugly!!

wind

Today was what I call windy ugly! It is just blasting outside which is exactly what our Aprils’ are about out here in Santa Fe. I thought we might not get it this year as we’ve had beautiful weather up till today. Spring is my least favorite season because it almost always is windy-really windy and the wind makes me crabby! I read that is because all the positive ions the wind whips up. Negative ions (like when it rains make us feel good and positive ions make us crabby!)

One year, about 11 years ago, the roof blew off my hay barn-literally the roof just lifted up-all 14′ x 24′ of it and landed on my neighbor’s property. When it hit, it left a 12″ deep dent where it hit the ground and exploded from the impact as pieces flew everywhere. Luckily nothing was damaged-no people or property. Just before the event, Elodie and I were down at the barn tightening up any screws on the roof (she was holding the ladder and I was on top of the roof and I had just gotten off the ladder when the wind came up and up and up. Elodie said “Well, this will be a good test” when a 70 mph micro-burst came into the barn, we heard a huge rip as it tore the roof off and the thing flew up in the air like one giant kite. Made me think of Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz when her house was lifted in the air. Elodie said, “That could have been you! You were just on the roof!” to which I chanted, ‘It wasn’t my time! It wasn’t my time!

PS: When I rebuilt the roof I put hurricane ties on the rafters so hopefully that won’t happen again. Today reminded me of that windy day!

2014 garden-then and now

long shot of garden

The Tomato Lady
Tomato Lady’s mini-farm

Row cover everywhere!

row cover in early summer

My main vegetable garden is basically divided into three sections-Section 1, Section 2 and Section 3-each section being around a 1000 square feet. So as I look at what I call ‘Section 3’, all I see is row cover everywhere! Looks like I laid out my laundry all over the ground but this is temporary. Row cover is used for extending the seasons and for protecting crops.

When I plant new transplants such as eggplants and peppers, I find our winds horrible on them, whipping them around and drying them out-totally stressing the poor little things so I put these mini hoops over them and put row cover on that protecting them from the ferocious winds we’ve had. When I plant seeds, I also cover them with row cover to protect them from the birds and other animals eating the seedlings as the germinate. Birds love bean sprouts, corn sprouts and cucumber sprouts but when I cover them, the birds don’t know what’s going on underneath when they germinate. So the garden looks like hell for a couple of weeks but will save me time and frustration of replanting more seeds later. This year after I planted the corn, bean and cucumber seeds, I put straw around them to help keep the soil moist and since I waited to plant later, an added bonus is the soil is pre-warmed  and the straw will help hold in the moisture when I water.

Cucumbers, corn and potatoes are in!

peppers and eggplants in

Why do I feel so far behind?!

Yesterday I finished putting in my seeds for cucumbers, potatoes (really late there)  and a new corn called ‘glass gem’ yesterday. Then I remind myself it just hailed last week and snowed the week before so perhaps I’m more on schedule than I think this year. All the crops will get row cover over them to protect them from birds eating the seedlings. Out of sight, out of mind.

Today I put in 8 pepper and 8 eggplant transplants and have 8 more of each to plant tomorrow plus squash seeds and Tarabais bean seeds to plant by the weekend.

Sounds easy but after I lightly turn the soil in the bed, add amendments in each hole, put the plant in, make a well around each plant to hold the water around the plant, connect a drip line and wrap it around each plant, put straw around each well and make cages to protect them and lastly put row cover over the cages which I secured using rocks so they won’t blow off. Phew—it all takes time. I get tired just thinking about it!

I am still germinating the gourds under the lights in the house which as soon as they come up and grow their first true leaves I will put out. Oh yea and the beets and carrots have to still go in. Sigh—so much to do! And did I mention I put in my one purple tomatillo plant? Blah. Blah. Blah.

Enough!

hail_may 09 2014

May 09. 2014

Wow! This weather is ugly. I for one am very tired of all this WIND and COLD COLD nights for us vegetable gardeners. Come on! I want to start planting in earnest!  I can hardly believe it’s still getting below freezing at night. Looks like mother nature is going to take us right up to the May 15th date of ‘first frost free date’ before we get out of danger of freezes at night and maybe not even then. Unbelievable! We’re expected to get up to 1 foot of snow up in our local mountains but just a trace down here in Santa Fe. Still, Colorado has it worse tonight! What are all those giant pumpkin friends gonna do to protect their babies tonight?!

I need to wait to plant warm season veggies like corn, gourds, squash, cucumbers, beans, eggplants, peppers, and of course my beloved tomatoes and giant pumpkins. So there they sit in the house, under their lights, getting huge, staying warm just waiting for their time to shine. I hope it’s soon. I don’t think I’ve ever planted my tomatoes so late-I always am able to sneak them in earlier with wall of waters which I still could do but every time I wanted to plant them this spring, I knew we were going to have freezing weather that night. I just keep telling myself-patience, patience.

Spring-More cold weather forecasted this week

Another cold snap has come into Santa Fe which is really unfortunate as all my apple trees are in full bloom. They are the last fruit trees to bloom on my property and usually escape the random freezing night this late in spring. But it was 32°F last nite and will be colder tonight and tomorrow night so we probably  won’t get any fruit again this year. When the apricots, peaches and plums were blooming this year, we had freezing weather and now the apple trees are hit. If this becomes true and we lose all the blossoms, it will be 2 years in a row where we will not get ANY fruit. Bummer.

Green House Lettuce, Bok Choy & Chard on 3-31-14

GH lettuce 03-31-14

Holy Schmole! My lettuce, in the picture above was planted as transplants back on February 17th and look at it at the end of March. Fantastic! So excited to not have to buy lettuce and greens for a while. I’ve been experimenting in the greenhouse planting some seeds and some as transplants. I got these transplants as little tiny plants in pony packs from Agua Fria Nursery in town in February. On the left is Marshall Red Romaine. In the middle is ‘Winter Wunderland’ leaf lettuce and on the right is Bright Lights Chard.  They are growing in the middle raised bed where I had horse manure composting in January to try to add heat to the greenhouse but in mid February I took out as it cooled down and took all but the top 6 inches and added soil and compost and waa lah! You can see how big they got since March 21 here.

mesclun

Here is a pic of the lettuce I planted by seeds. It is a mesclun mix from Johnny’s called, 5-star lettuce mix. It’s not quite tall enough to ‘cut and come again’ but will be soon-probably in the next week.

 

dwarf bok choi

Here is a variety of dwarf bok choy (choi) I planted from seed. I will transplant some of these to sell a little later and the rest will have room to really get bigger. They are doing really well.

yellow green bok choi

I love the color of this yellow-green bok choi – chartreuse! Such a great contrast to the other ‘greens’.

tatsoi

Here is a variety called tatsoi-the hardiest of the bok choi family. It grows in little clusters.

I planted all of them on the edge of the raised bed as I’m going to put in some tomatoes soon  in the middle of the bed as another experiment to see how they do. My thinking is by the time the tomatoes need more room, the cold hardy greens will be done (eaten)  🙂

Cold Weather Protection for Vegetable Gardens Class-this Saturday

Here’s the flyer info for my class this Saturday April 5th-Hope many of you can come-it should be good!

 

WOW pic for blog

 

Saturday, April 5
Cold Weather Protection for Vegetable Gardens
Protecting your crops in spring
Time: 10 am-12 pm
Instructor: Jannine Cabossel
Location: Whole Food’s Community Room (St. Francis location)
Please RSVP to 505-983-9706 or email: homegrownnewmexico1@gmail.com

Jannine Cabossel, a Master Gardener and ‘The Tomato Lady’ at the Santa Fe Farmers Market will teach a class about how to use row cover, cloches, hoop houses, wall of waters, and other items to get your garden in earlier with protection.

Jannine has extensive experience in growing vegetables on her 3000 square foot garden using all organic methods. Follow her blog at giantveggiegardener.com. Suggested $10 donation. Become a 2014 Member for $35 with $250 value-includes all classes, potlucks and tour.